There are two water polo seasons, the winter season and the spring/summer season.   The winter season, which is sponsored by the high school athletic department and governed by CIF rules, begins for the boys in September and ends in November, and for the girls begins in November and ends in February.  There are three levels of play in the winter season: varsity, junior varsity and freshman-sophomore (frosh-soph).  These high school teams are coached by Jason Lynch, Bill Barnett and Brian Melstrom.

The spring/summer season is not sponsored by the high school. We have our own water polo club under the name of the Newport Water Polo Foundation and which is governed by the United States Water Polo, Inc. rules.  This is much like the rest of the world where water polo is played at the club level rather than school against school.  The Newport Water Polo Foundation is a water polo club that is composed of the following team levels: senior, junior and novice.

The senior team is coached by Ted Newland who founded the Newport Harbor water polo program in 1959, and is currently the water polo coach at UC Irvine.  The senior players are current UCI students or college graduates.  Several players on the senior team are also members of the United States National Water Polo Team, from which the Olympic Team will be chosen.

The junior team is composed of all current high school water polo players at Newport Harbor.  This team plays in several age group tournaments during the spring/summer season.  The players in these tournaments are placed together on a team according to their age (for example: 15 years and younger) rather than their class in school.

The novice team is designed primarily for 7th and 8th graders who plan to play water polo when they matriculate to Newport.

The spring/summer season generally begins in late May and ends the first week of August.  The purpose of the spring/summer season is to increase the skill level of the players so that they can compete at a more advanced level in the fall.  Between the two water polo seasons, we encourage all players to participate on the high school swim team.  The boys swimming season begins the third week of February and ends the second week of May.